My Life as a Teeth Grinder

All my life I’ve had terrible nightmares about my teeth falling out. The funny thing about these dreams is that it’s never the same nightmare twice. Sometimes, just one tooth will pop neatly out. Sometimes, my teeth fall out one at a time after a period of psychologically agonizing looseness. Still other times, my teeth disintegrate into powder inside my mouth. Usually, there’s some attempt on my part to recover my intact smile. In my dreams, I’ll try to force the tooth back into my gums, or I’ll try frantically to get to an emergency dentist before all my teeth are gone. I probably don’t need to tell you that I never win in these dreams.

Once I got old enough to realize that not everyone has nightmares about loosing teeth (in fact, I seemed to be the only one), I tried to figure out what my dreams might mean. I consulted dream book after dream book, many of which didn’t list “teeth” or “losing teeth” as entries. The books that did mention teeth claimed I was experiencing a loss of power or financial stability in my waking life.

The dream book diagnosis didn’t seem to fit, because I had these nightmares regularly. Whether I felt rich and powerful or broke and helpless in my waking hours, I regularly experienced the nightmares about losing my teeth a few times a month.

When I was seventeen, my worst nightmares came true. My front teeth became loose enough to wiggle with my finger, and I was terrified my dreams had been a prophecy. I made an appointment to see my dentist as soon as possible.

When I went to my dentist’s office to explain my problem, I never actually saw my dentist. The dental hygienist that did examine me told me that my wisdom teeth were coming in and pushing my other teeth closer to the front of my mouth. She seemed to think this was great for me, because it was a completely free way to fix the gap I used to have between my front teeth.